Fly By Night
For Best Results… Play This Album.
Released Mercury/Polygram, 15 February, 1975.
- Anthem (4:22)
- Best I Can (3:25)
- Beneath,Between and Behind (3:02)
- By-Tor and The Snowdog (8:37)
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- I. At The Tobes of Hades
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- II. Across The Styx
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- III. Of The Battle
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- IV. Epilogue
- Fly By Night (3:21)
- Making Memories (2:58)
- Rivendell (4:57)
- In The End (6:47)
Geddy Lee - Bass/Acoustic Guitar/Vocals. Alex Lifeson - Acoustic & Electric Guitars. Neil Peart - Drums/Percussion.
Produced by Rush and Terry Brown.
Neil’s arrival changed things, not least it put off the “difficult second album” experience, this release being more of a second debut. As well as filling the gap on the drummer’s stool, Neil shared a philosophical, musical and practical ambition with the others and the results are ample testament to this. The opening song, ‘Anthem’ had come out of the first jam between the three of them, the immediacy of the Ayn Rand-inspired lyrics giving Geddy something more solid to sing about than wine and women. “Begging hands and bleeding hearts will only cry out for more…” While idealistic and a touch naïve, the words were altogether more sensitively composed, crossing libertarian with fantasy themes. “Because I was a post-adolescent this reflected my interest and sensibilities at the time,” said Neil.
Despite time pressures and the fact that Neil was jumping onto an already-moving train, his influence was significant. A number of older songs, such as ‘Garden Road’ and ‘Fancy Dancer’ were skipped as plenty of new material had been written on tour, on the buses and in the hotels, and rehearsed in the front and back of the stage. Indeed, only one straight heavy blues song, ‘Best I Can’, made it onto the album. Not that all the songs were lengthy epics – the title track ‘Fly By Night’ is straightforward enough, as is the acoustic number ‘Making Memories’, but both are indicative of a band drawing from a deeper well of musical styles. Both also share the theme of travel, each offering a whimsical view of life on the road, the first songs of many to recognise the itinerant nature of the newly formed trio.
Drawing heavily on the influences of their progressive rock peers, as well as Neil’s own literary ambitions and just a hint of oil of petunia, the band found itself turning to the more fantastic themes of swords and sorcery. ‘By-Tor and The Snowdog’ is the band’s first epic number, loosely based on lighting man Howard Ungerleider’s experiences with manager Ray Danniels’ dogs, and replete with guitar and electronics in mock battle. Such, more considered songs demanded more considered music, as illustrated by ‘Beneath, Between and Behind’, Geddy almost chanting the words in this hybrid of blues and prog. Following the constant, epiglottal tension of the majority of songs ‘Rivendell’ comes as some respite. It offers a gentle, unadulterated homily to Tolkien, but like the Elfin sanctuary of the title the music is a halfway house, not a destination.
While the majority of this album remains dependent on outside influences, it closes with ‘In The End’, an open-hearted expression of the band’s own personality. The song starts acoustically but before long the chords are replaced with their electric equivalents; Geddy’s vocals are at first tempered, then hollered to bring the band full circle, back to its street corner origins. As if to say, we know where we’ve come from, we know where we’re going, and we know exactly what it will take for us to get there.